Saturday, March 27, 2010

Flirting with admissions...Texas style

So apparently I got busy last week (go figure) and wasn't able to finish--or even continue--my series on past boyfriends. For another day and time, folks. Until then, I'll tell you that I've been thinking a lot lately about when I applied for college. I just got a job as a high school recruiter for BYU, and I'm remembering all I went through to apply and select a school.

One thing I was particularly proud of was my admission essay. I remembered advice given to me by my senior English teacher, Ms. Brown, when she told us to make our essays creative and memorable. I took that advice very seriously. So for my 200-word essay on how I prepared to come to BYU, this is what I wrote:

Here in Texas, everything is big; molehills are mountains, drizzles are floods. If something must happen, it happens in extremes. And so it happened that this southern belle prepared herself extremely for the demands of higher education.

Mere participation in fine arts escalated into a mountain when I made competitive region orchestra and region drama. I also received the highest honors in speech and violin for various tournaments.

Serving as laurel president and leader in stake youth council, I elevated my Y-Mount into Mount Everest. I composed music for beehives to play in church. I went with missionaries to help activate youth in a ward. Writing the stake's New Beginnings program added snow to my summit. Remembering I must build others' mountains as well, I devoted last summer to tutoring children in math and reading.

My academics were no Carolina creek, either. I drenched the embankments of a high school education with participation in AP classes and National Honor Society. This, combined with my leadership roles in school and service organizations kept my Rio Grande flowing.

I have filled my Texas taco with the meat of the gospel and the flavorings of arts and rigorous academics. Doesn't it look tasty?


What do you think? I'm still so proud of it, although it's extremely juvenile. Looking back, it seems risky that I would write something so flippant. But I got in, so...

Monday, March 22, 2010

Dating Lesson Number 1

You know when they say that before you die, you see your life flash before your eyes? Lately my mind has been flooded by the lessons learned from past relationships. You could say it’s flashing before my eyes. Hopefully that’s a sign that my single life is soon to be over.

But in honor of my recent flashbacks, and due to the fact that I found out some friends need their frequent rule19 fix, I’m going to start blogging more diligently again. I will be blogging about the lessons learned from past relationships. I feel like I've changed and become better with each one. Hopefully that's true.

Now as I speak about past relationships, I don’t want anyone to feel defamed. So some names have been changed where appropriate. When it’s not appropriate (such as the guy will never read this blog, I kind of want to use actual names; you know…to keep it real.) I also want to make it entertaining so I'm going to diligently reflect on each relationship and compare my relationship with a character in popular culture, mostly from TV or movies.

So here we go with installment one: first boyfriend, Sam.

With Sam, I was April from Parks and Recreation.



Why April? Because she likes to create drama. She dates a boy who is sometimes gay, who also has a boyfriend who's always gay. If things weren't so weird, she probably wouldn't be involved in this relationship.

So Dating Lesson Number One: Relationships are more fun when you can have them without drama.

I met Sam in my high school video tech class. He was the class clown. He was also extremely smart. So right when I first started dating, I knew generally what I was attracted to (funny genius boys). But what I loved most about Sam was that he was Jewish. I thought it would create a stir. I was the stereotypical "Mormon girl" in my school and I thought it would create a buzz if we started dating. We started dating around Christmas time (or Hanukkah I guess) when school was almost out so we didn't have time for people to see that we were dating. When we came back from break, I tried to spread it around in a very controversial way--spread my own salacious rumor about my own relationship.

Unfortunately for Sam it didn't work. People kind of thought it was weird but when they'd ask, "Isn't that against your religion?" I didn't want people to get false doctrine so I used the opportunity to talk about temple marriage but also tell me it's fine to date whomever. No drama.

So then I tried to create drama using my power position in the school. For 90-minutes every other day, I was an administrative assistant in the principal's office. Frequently I would use the pink hall passes (I was able to get people out of class with them to come to the principal's office) to get Sam out of class. We'd find an empty room and just chill for the period. After once getting caught from my speech teacher (who held in his hand the power to revoke me from the traveling team), I decided the drama wasn't worth it. Little Sammy and I only lasted a month.

He's now got himself a hot Jewish girlfriend, a bachelor's from University of Texas and a stable job at Microsoft in Seattle.

Stay tuned tomorrow when we examine Brandon, who filled my desire to date a jock...and subsequently helped me learn why I hate that.

Monday, March 15, 2010

Oh Danny Boy

Most people have bad things to say about their ex-boyfriends/girlfriends. For Daniel, I tried and tried and tried to think of something bad. I got nothing.



Daniel's a first-year law student at the top of his class at Arizona State. We met when I was a first-year law student at BYU and he was applying to schools. Same ward. His minor was my undergrad major. His political ideals matched my dads. We're both Texans. We're both outspoken. He's close to--or one of my--or I hope he doesn't read this blog and think I'm sappy or lame for saying this because I'm supposed to be unemotional --maybe my best guy friend. Just super chill. A great influence. All around great guy.

This is Daniel seducing a goat, the day after my birthday (2008); the day before we got together...officially?



He's in town this week for spring break. If this were Facebook, I would "like" this.

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Anal Girl?

Call me crazy, but is it weird for me to find a text on my boyfriend's phone to another girl telling her that he loves her?

Sure, yeah. Maybe he loves her platonically.

But is it weird if he hasn't ever told me that he loves me? And he's known both of us just as long?

You know, I guess he's right when he tells me girls just like to create lots of drama.